Automotive Industry Review Management Tips & Insights

They line up like schoolchildren, a solid mile and a half line of end-to-end car dealerships taking up the entirety of a single street.

It's a sight you're likely to see in any number of cities, and it speaks to just how hard it can be to distinguish your dealership from any other dealership on the planet.

Distinguishing the dealership is just one challenge. The other is earning long-term loyalty in an industry where the typical buying cycle is now over 10 years long.

A great automotive industry review management strategy can help auto dealers tackle these problems in a number of ways:

1. Research shows only one thing sets car dealerships apart: the experience customers receive while they're there. Reviews are one of the only ways for customers to determine what that experience might look like in advance.

3. A customer who has taken the time to review the dealership will tend to be more loyal. They've essentially sold themselves on using the dealership in the future.

It's easy to think reviews are beyond your control. This is only half true. While you can't force a customer to write a good review, you can create conditions which make receiving that review more likely.

What makes a great review?

Before we talk about creating favorable conditions for great reviews, let's talk about what a helpful review even looks like. Understanding the shape of an ideal review carries two serious benefits:

These reviews offer insight into how to run your dealership in a way that’s pleasing to customers.

They provide a roadmap for the language you’ll want to use when asking for reviews.

So now that you know what a great review looks like, how do you go about getting more of them?

First, make a personal ask around the time you hand the customer the keys, just before he or she happily drives off the lot. When you do, choose language that touches on some of these points.

For example, you might say, "If I've given you a great experience today would you please consider leaving us a review on whatever review site you prefer?" You could do the same with other phrases like:

If you feel like I gave you a great deal today…

If you’ve enjoyed our time together here today…

If you feel like we took good care of you today…

You could also take this time to remind the customer your service department is there and waiting if they need either routine maintenance or repairs in the future.

It's also possible for customers to research the specific make and model of each car right on the site. They can compare pricing data right on-site too. It wouldn't hurt to send the bulk of your reviewers right here, something you can easily do with Grade.us, which helps you funnel happy customers to the review sites that will help you most.

DealerRater is another high traffic review site in the automotive industry. Not only is it very popular, but it also gives out annual awards which can serve as a selling point for your dealership. The rewards are 100% linked to the number and quality of the reviews you receive on this site.

Pro Tip:

If you win a Dealer Rater or similar award, go right ahead and boost your online reputation by putting out a press release about it.

Of course, some of the sites you'll want to target don't have anything to do with cars. You'll want to pay particular attention to Facebook. 38% of millennials are consulting social media sites, not review sites. Forget all the doom and gloom about millennials killing entire industries while shamelessly snacking on avocado toast. Millennials are buying roughly 4 million cars on an annual basis, and represent the largest living population in the US.

Finally, of course, there's Google My Business, which almost no industry can afford to neglect. While most customers go to car-specific sites first, it never hurts to get that review-based ranking boost in Google Maps, and plenty of customers will both write and read reviews there.

Reviews create a cycle, but you have to close the loop.

The cycle looks something like this:

You “wow” Customer A.

Customer A writes a review and becomes loyal to your dealership.

Customer B reads the review left by Customer A.

Customer B comes into the dealership.

If you don't close the loop by "wowing" Customer B too, you've just tanked the whole process. Customer B either won't review you, or will leave a nasty review instead.

You can't treat the process of getting reviews like it's some sort of trick or gimmick. You have to genuinely deliver a fantastic customer experience to make any of this work at all. So when you get a good review, really analyze what went right in that interaction so you can do more of it. When you get a bad one, pinpoint what went wrong so you can fix it.

Engage with the cycle correctly, and those dealerships to the right and left of you won't hurt you much.

Need reviews for your dealership?

The automotive industry is competitive and reviews can help you one up your competition. Reviews are becoming more essential to place your delership in the local 3 pack.